Litigation Concentration Forum

[cmartin5970]

This may be a stupid question but I have tried searching the forum and haven't had any luck. I am looking into law schools and many offer a litigation concentration. I am interested in criminal law, do litigation concentrations usually cover civil and criminal law or do they usually focus on civil litigation.

[BVest]

Most trial ad concentrations will be more focused on civil cases.

Here's a thread on crim law:
http://www.top-law-schools.com/archives ... =5&t=38727

[DocHawkeye]

My school offers a criminal litigation concentration but by that they mean you basically take the civil litigation concentration plus crim pro and and work in the criminal clinic.

[kalvano]

Don't focus on "concentration". You need to take Crim, Crim Pro, Evidence, and your state Crim Pro if offered, plus do crim clinic. If you plan on doing federal work, Admin will be useful too.

You can probably intern over the summer for a criminal court judge as well. I did it, and you'll learn a lot about being a criminal lawyer.

[TheProsecutor]

law school is essentially a litigation concentration. The case method is litigation heavy because a lot of what litigators do is research case law and distinguish current facts from the case law facts. If you want to be a litigator be sure to take these courses: Advanced Civil Procedure, Federal Courts, Administrative Law, and an advanced constitutional law course. For further training try to do an externship with a federal or state judge and/or work at a USAO. Moot court is also good litigation training because it will get you writing and doing oral arguments and of course serving as an editor on a journal is good litigation training because proper citing is a good skill to have as a junior litigator.

[TheProsecutor]

Oh and for what it is worth, GULC has the best crim law clinic by far, I think.

[blsingindisguise]

law school is essentially a litigation concentration. The case method is litigation heavy because a lot of what litigators do is research case law and distinguish current facts from the case law facts. If you want to be a litigator be sure to take these courses: Advanced Civil Procedure, Federal Courts, Administrative Law, and an advanced constitutional law course. For further training try to do an externship with a federal or state judge and/or work at a USAO. Moot court is also good litigation training because it will get you writing and doing oral arguments and of course serving as an editor on a journal is good litigation training because proper citing is a good skill to have as a junior litigator.

Right, offering a "litigation concentration" would be almost silly, in fact, since law school is already so heavily skewed toward litigation. There's also no reason to need a "concentration" at all because you can take most of the same courses at any reputable law school.

I would, however, say that it might be unnececssary to take all four of those courses, depending on what kind of a litigator OP wants to be.